


Five Time Jacen Syndulla Ignored the Resistance and the One Time He Didn't

by annastronaut



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: 5+1 Things, Force Sensitive Jacen, Gen, Minor Resistance Reborn Spoilers, The Resistance Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annastronaut/pseuds/annastronaut
Summary: “Let’s leave being revolutionaries to our parents.” Jacen crossed his arms, “I for one want to enjoy what little quiet I can find out there."“Besides,” he said, “It’s not like they’re going to be a big deal. The First Order will lose steam before we know it.”
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30
Collections: Rebels ROS Event





	Five Time Jacen Syndulla Ignored the Resistance and the One Time He Didn't

The first time Jacen heard of the Resistance and chose to ignore it, he was five- maybe six? beers deep into an awkward conversation with his childhood best friend, Poe Dameron. They met up as they usually did once a standard year or so around Life Day at a crowded hole-in-the-wall cantina on Yavin IV.

“Okay buddy, you really should join us,” Poe yelled over the din of surrounding conversations, clapping his hand onto Jacen’s shoulder a little too roughly. “We could really use your help- well, honestly any help. We could especially use your help since you can, _you know_ …” at this point he whistled two notes and wiggled his fingers in the air. 

“Sorry man,” Jacen leaned a little too far to the right, bumping shoulders with the unsuspecting stranger sitting on the other side of them to no notice. “I’m not interested in fighting any wars. That’s our parents’ business. Not ours.” 

Poe looked thoughtful for a second and said, “Just think how much a Jedi-”

“I’m not a Jedi.” Jacen interrupted him before he could even get started. They’d had The Jedi Conversation many times before, and honestly, he was a little tired of it. “Just because I have the ability to use-” and here Jacen paused, whistling and wiggling his fingers as well. “It doesn’t make me a Jedi.” 

“Listen, I’m just saying that maybe you should join our cause. We can both agree that things are starting to get a bit rough out there,” Poe said, taking another drink of his heady beer, the foam sticking to his lip a little bit.

“Let’s leave being revolutionaries to our parents.” Jacen crossed his arms, “I for one want to enjoy what little peace and quiet I can find out there. Why go looking for trouble? I like my life. I don’t want to throw it all away to fight against something that’s just going to go away on its own.” Jacen started to look around for the barkeep, hoping to close his tab soon. 

“Besides,” he said, “It’s not like they’re going to be a big deal. The First Order will lose steam before we know it.”

Jacen left the cantina not long after, stumbling his way back to his ship, _The Shadow._ He needed to sleep before taking off in the morning. He tried to push all thoughts of flying and fighting against political extremists out of his mind. 

That night when Jacen slept his dreams had the hum of kyber in them, and when he woke up his first thoughts were of the necklace with his own crystal on it around his neck.

⁂

The second time he ignored the Resistance Jacen was with his mother. 

He was visiting her at home and over a cup of deychin tea, she fixed him with The Look. When Jacen was a child he would often get The Look directed at him. It signaled that his mother wanted him to make the right choice about something. Her right eyebrow would raise slightly higher than her left and her lekku would curl to the back. While her eyes had a few more lines around them these days than when he was a kid, The Look still had a high success rate, despite the fact that he was now in his thirties.

“Have you heard about the First Order? They’re starting to gain traction in their campaign to remove all non-humans from government,” Hera said.

“That’s terrible,” he replied, immediately wary of where this conversation was headed.

“You know, there’s a group out there trying to put a stop to this. General Organa is rumored to be involved,” she took a sip of her tea, looking at him over the brim of her mug. “I was thinking of getting in touch.”

Getting the hint, Jacen interrupted her. “Listen, Mom, I’m sure this whole thing will blow over soon enough. There have been plenty of holdovers from the old Empire days and they’ve been handled before. There’s no use in us getting involved.” 

“It’s never a bad thing to be involved, Dear,” Hera said. “I think it might be good for you to go out there and at least see what’s going on.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll look into it,” Jacen sighed, before changing the subject. 

Later, he realized that maybe The Look wasn’t as effective as it once used to be, because he never did bother with looking into it, even if he did feel just the slightest amount of guilt over it.

⁂

The third time, not long after seeing his mother, Jacen was running freight for a group of tree farmers on Dantooine. 

While unloading crates full of saplings and seeds, he saw a Devaronian and Gotal quietly talking to each other, heads bent down. As he passed them, arms full of plasteel boxes, he pricked his ears in their direction.

“Did you hear what they’re doing with all of these? They’re terraforming this icy rock they’re working on and can’t get adequate foliage to cover it up fast enough. What do you think they could be working on?” The Gotal whispered to his partner. 

“I’m telling you, it’s something big and we better watch out.” The Devaronian said. “I don’t like the thought of them even having a base large enough to hold a small hydro planter- and now they’ve got their hands on something big enough to terraform. It’s frightening,” the Devaronian leaned back, crossing his arms.

“Something with that much greenery on it must be taking up a lot of energy,” The Gotal’s brow was furrowed in concern. “What could they even be working on?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know if I want to wait around to find out. What I do know is there’s some folks out there that are trying to put a stop to all of this. They’ve got a base on D’Qar, I hear,” the Devaronian said. “I was thinking of heading out there as soon as planting season is over.”

Jacen had stopped working, his full attention on the couple in front of him. As if they could sense his eyes on them, they immediately stopped and looked at him.

“Hey! Mind your own business!” The Devaronian snarled at him, “Eyes on your own work, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Jacen muttered to himself, hefting up a crate and putting it on the nearest available hovercart. 

Once all the cargo was unloaded and he’d been paid, Jacen sat in the pilot’s seat of the Shadow to look up how many hyperspace jumps away he was from D’Qar. He shook his head as he realized his hand was idly spinning the crystal on his necklace.

⁂

By the time the next standard year came around, everyone had heard of the Resistance. They were a constant thorn in the side of the First Order. With the destruction of Hosnian Prime, Jacen had a fourth chance to ignore them. 

Sitting up in bed and unable to sleep not long after the cataclysm, he was idly listening to the Holonet News, not really paying attention when he first heard that the Resistance had a Jedi. A very young one at that, who had held her own against Kylo Ren, the darksider of the First Order.

Jacen scoffed, wrinkling his eyebrows. Not that long ago Kylo Ren was still known as Ben Solo and was an annoying snot-nosed younger kid that used to try and hang around with him and Poe at big Rebellion reunions and meetups. Even then, the kid had been off; Ben had seemed like he held onto anger a little too long and felt it a little too intensely. 

Once, Jacen overheard General Organa talking with his mother, the two of them whispering in the night when they thought he was asleep with the other children. With his eyes half open and straining his ears, he heard the General wonder if the life of the old Jedi was right for her son. She asked Hera what she knew of his father’s life before the fall of the Order, if she thought that anyone could lead a happy and fulfilling life that way. She had wanted to hear these things coming from someone who wasn’t her brother, someone who hadn’t completely thrown themselves into the lifestyle without a second thought.

Thinking back on it and knowing the things he did now, Jacen figured that maybe the General had her reservations because of what the Jedi Order had done to her father. Anakin Skywalker was a man who, by all accounts, was restrained by the Order into leading a life that sent him down the path to becoming Vader. Maybe that’s what General Organa had been afraid of for her son. Maybe she was right to be afraid.

Jacen had no desire to be a Jedi. Not anymore. His father was a Jedi, yes, but a very unconventional one at that. He supposed that loving and forming attachments were what his father and General Organa’s had in common. Only Jacen’s father had embraced and found the light in forming attachments and feeling love. As opposed to Vader, whose love and attachments led him down a much, much darker path wreaking havoc and causing destruction everywhere he went.

While Jacen had spent his childhood and teenage years wanting and training to be a Jedi, he found no deep spiritual connection to the Force that his father and others had. The Force was simply something that was a part of him, and if it decided to let itself be known to him, then so be it for him to ignore it. And that no attachments thing? Forget it. Jacen’s own attitude was that attachments were what grounded you and kept you from falling to the dark side. Or at least kept you from making poor decisions. 

Reading about this Jedi, who fought against Kylo Ren with Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber made Jacen remember his own, stored in pieces in a drawer in his bunk on the Shadow. The kyber crystal he wore around his neck, the only outward sign of Jacen knowing anything about the Force, he only wore because he couldn’t bring himself to be far away from it for very long. Briefly, Jacen debated getting his lightsaber out, putting it together, and turning it on just to make sure it still worked. Maybe, he thought, he should get it out and help her, help the Resistance. Sure, he was no Jedi, but he had the Force and he was one hell of a pilot. 

As soon as the thought entered his head, Jacen dismissed it. The Resistance wasn’t the place for him, and he really didn’t want to get involved in any kind of galactic conflict. Jacen felt at peace in his own little corner of the galaxy, living on and making a living with his ship and helping his mother out with her flight school. Why look for trouble? Yes, the First Order was terrible, but there were other far more capable people taking care of them.

Later, as he was finally falling asleep Jacen could have sworn that for a brief moment that he felt his crystal warm up and emit a light glow for a second before slowly fading into the darkness surrounding it.

⁂

The fifth and next chance Jacen had to ignore the Resistance, he was home again, helping his mother around the house. He was inside the _Ghost_ running diagnostics on the old ship’s hyperdrive when a little niggling feeling started to buzz around in his mind, telling him to focus, that an unnamed _something_ was coming. 

Normally when Jacen got this feeling, he ignored it as best he could and went about his business as usual. Maybe because he was on the _Ghost_ , the place he grew up and the place where if he focused he could feel the lingering presence of the light from the two Jedi who once lived there, he decided to sit up and pay attention.

He felt goose pimples rise suddenly on his arms, and felt the hair on them stand on end, like a ripple of static electricity had rushed past him. The Force was trying to get his attention in a way it hadn’t in years, not since he was a teenager and wore a lightsaber at his hip, looking for a way to prove himself as a true Jedi. Sweeping his vision from left to right, he scanned the cockpit, looking for what was causing the buzzing to circle around in his mind. 

Everything looked and felt exactly the same. Just-- there- his mind pointed him to the left. The comms. A light was blinking on the ship’s communications system, the old hypertranceiver indicating an incoming holocall. Curious, Jacen flipped the switch and turned it on. Instantly a blur appeared before him, indicating that whatever kind of message sent to his mom was scrambled and coded. 

A distorted voice came next, detailing that the Resistance was trapped on Crait. They were out of fuel and out of what they needed to properly fight. The First Order wasn’t far behind, effectively trapping them. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and out of options. Reaching out to whoever they could, the Resistance was asking for aid in any way possible. Send your fighters, your ships, your fuel, _anything_ , they asked. 

When the call ended, Jacen sat back, blowing air between his lips in a sigh. Finally, the war had come to him, well, come for his mother, and there was no ignoring it now. 

Only he could. He had been spending most of his spare time helping his mother train pilots at her flight school. And his mother? Hera had spent the better part of the past year on Ryloth, caring for her ailing father. There was no way possible that they could drop everything and run off to aid the Resistance, no matter how much they wanted to.

Decision made, Jacen decided his work on the _Ghost_ was done. As he walked down the loading ramp, the buzzing in his head kept growing stronger and stronger, louder and louder, and the crystal around his neck seemed to vibrate with anticipation.

⁂

When Jacen finally joined up with the Resistance, he didn’t have any other choice. 

In the two weeks following the distress call from Crait, the buzzing in the back of his mind never went away. With each passing second, it grew louder and louder until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. If the Force was trying to get his attention, it was a success, because here he was with the Resistance reporting for duty as Captain Syndulla, a navy pilot assigned to Poe’s Black Squadron.

Jacen found that coming into the Resistance Navy was a strange and familiar thing all at once. Most of the higher-ranking officers he either knew from his childhood or had heard enough about to be familiar with. He found himself growing closer in his friendship with Poe again, the two of them sneaking a drink together every now and again when they got the chance to blow off some steam.

When he found out the Resistance was headed to Ryloth in order to regroup, Jacen felt as though he could laugh from the irony of it all. No matter how far the Syndullas strayed from Ryloth, it seemed that they would always fight on her soil in one way or another. Jacen’s grandfather Cham fought for Ryloth’s freedom from corruption, Separatists, and later from the Empire. His mother grew up during the Clone Wars and had fought the Empire on Ryloth. In the process, she managed to blow up the family stronghold- a fact that Grandfather always laughed at and never let her live down. And now, here he was, an X-wing pilot getting ready to fly and fight with the Ryloth Defence Authority under the leadership of Yendor, the closest thing his grandfather could call to a political successor, against the First Order.

Jacen knew that somewhere on the surface in the Tann Province his mother and grandfather might be able to look up into the night sky and see the explosions and fires from the battle taking place above the same planet. He also knew that his mother would give anything to be flying right now, but Cham required around the clock care in his older age. He wondered if his grandfather knew that he was going to be joining the Syndulla family legacy of fighting for Ryloth’s freedom from oppressive forces, and what he would think of him now?

When flying during the battle, he didn’t use the Force. Not for anything extraordinary, maybe just to nudge him in one direction or another. He’s not a Jedi, after all. Even then he was not invulnerable. Somehow or another, he got hit with someone else’s lucky shot, and while he was fine, his X-wing most certainly was not. 

Once the adrenaline rush and high of flying in battle wore off, and Jacen was pulling off his scorched flight suit and changing into civilian clothes, he realized that he didn’t have a ship to fly. The Resistance was short on ships, which was a major problem that wasn’t going to be solved anytime soon. His mother always said grounding a pilot is always the best way to go looking for trouble. Briefly, Jacen thought of the _Shadow_ , and how it could possibly be outfitted to fly in battle. Then he realized that just the reinforcements needed to the shielding would cost more than the ship was worth itself. 

Wracking his brain, Jacen tried to come up with a way to find something to fly, and fast because the Resistance was on the move and there were only more battles to come. Looking outside, at the _Millennium Falcon_ parked across the landing yard, Jacen got an idea.

A couple of months later, when the war with the First Order escalated, Jacen was flying _The Ghost_ through a barrage of enemy fire, with a crew of fellow fighters manning her guns. The kyber around his neck sang as he dodged left and right, around and weaving through other ships, making his way to his objective. If he managed to take out a few enemy ships in the process, even better. 

Slipping his ship into formation with the rest of the Resistance’s mixed group of ships, Jacen heard the other ships call off their name and position. When it came to his turn, he leaned forward, gripping the controls so hard that the leather of his gloves creaked. 

“This is Spectre Two, the _Ghost_ is in position and ready to go,” Jacen said, realizing that by taking on his mother’s call sign he was keeping the tradition of having the _Ghost_ ’s pilot and leader as number two. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about coming full circle in that regard. What he did know was that he was ready to take out as many First Order ships as possible.

Not long after, when he was flying, he realized he was starting to lean into the Force, letting it guide him in battle. Adrenaline rushing, crystal glowing, Jacen managed to make it through the battle without a single scratch on his mother's ship. The First Order, on its last legs, turned around in retreat. Finishing the war was no longer up to him, but the Force users, the girl Jedi and the ragtag group following her against Kylo Ren and his Knights of Ren. 

Jacen sat back in the pilot’s seat, taking deep breaths trying to slow his racing heart. He then noticed a sudden silence that hadn't been there before. Reaching for the kyber around his neck, he realized it was finally quiet for the first time in months, maybe even a year. Perhaps it had realized he had fully embraced the Force. Maybe it hadn't. Either way, Jacen felt a peace; it was a sign that he was finally doing what the Force willed. He may be no Jedi, but he knew that for now, he was exactly where he needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Big big thank you to [Eschscholzia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eschscholzia/pseuds/eschscholzia) for beta reading this for me- you are wonderful to put up with my terrible grammar skills.
> 
> You can find me over on [tumblr](http://annastronaut.tumblr.com) mostly yelling about Star Wars.


End file.
